


Reaching Through The Drift

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [168]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Crossover, Ghost Drifting, M/M, Qunlat, Stream of Consciousness, conlang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Promptfic. Very, very rarely, a Jaeger pilot is able to carry the weight of their metal compatriot solo. Neither Saemus Dumar or Ash Tirta can brag of this feat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In the history of the Jaeger program, there are two people who have been able to pilot solo without serious damage, and Saemus Dumar is  _not_ one of those people.

 

He’s lucky Capitoline has forced them toward the coast  _Ash is not moving_ because Riptide Prophet  _Ash’s heart isn’t beating_ suddenly weighs all of its multiple tonnes and  _his chest isn’t rising_ Saemus can’t move her an inch. Riptide falls onto her elbows  _Ash talk to me_  and the kaiju pounces, wailing like a Northern wind  _not funny man wake up come on_ and smashing its pincers through the cockpit  _Ash no_ over and  _there’s so much blood_ over and  _all of it is his_ over and over and the drift is dark—

Kirkwall Champ takes care of the beast, and the twin ‘additions’ it suddenly drops in the middle of battle. Hawke hauls Saemus out of the wreckage  _Ash_ and his nose runs red  _Ash don’t leave me alone_ and his hands run red and the whites of his eyes  _kadan_ are completely red. His mind is shattered, as is his heart.

The recovery is long and his arms have raw flat scars seared down their length. He learns to move, to walk. But he does not speak, except for one whispered word when it looks like nobody is listening.

His dreams are white and red and black and red and red, clouds of swirling mist that he cannot decipher. Even in these dreams he is aware of a yawning emptiness, something  _missing_ , although he cannot remember what. Then one night the mist speaks in a voice he recognises.  _Find me in the drift._

Saemus wakes with a shout and promptly forgets what he was dreaming about. But it happens again  _find me in the drift_ and again  _find me,_   _I am here_ and again  _I am very close to you, kadan_. Until, at last, the pieces fall into place and the dreams become solid and he sees a face—

In the morning Saemus can’t wake up fast enough.  _Find me in the drift._ He kicks into his slippers, grabs his cane (he has worked hard for that cane) and shuffles out into the corridors.  _Find me in the drift._ He closes his eyes, listens, feels, _moves_. The voice grows stronger and clearer and warmer, until—

—Saemus walks in on Ash’s ward, facing a man who is all plaster and bandages and flashes of pale grey skin. His face does not change when their eyes meet, but—perhaps there is a certain shine in them that he may never admit to openly.

“ _Shanedan,”_ Ash croaks, and it’s the first full words he’s spoken since they admitted him.

“ _Shanedan, kadan,”_ Saemus says, his words wobbling only slightly.

_I found you._

_We found each other._


	2. Ash's Side

In the history of the Jaeger program, only one person has emerged unscathed from a solo-pilot situation without serious, immediate injury. Ash Tirta is  _not_ that person. Neither is he that solo pilot.

He has no pulse or breath when they pull him out of Riptide Prophet’s shattered conn-pod. He doesn’t have much left in the way of blood, either. But as they drag him clear after his copilot, he twitches and gasps, breath bubbling weakly in his mangled throat.

They close the wounds and take out his spleen and pump him full of B- blood, wrap him in plaster and bandages and attach him to several machines, but Ash doesn’t regain consciousness. The doctors don’t know if he ever will. They don’t know if he sleeps, or dreams, or is already on his way into the light.

His world is white and red and black, a cocoon around him thicker than swaddling cloth and calcium, warmer and deeper than the drift itself. The outer world is distant, unreachable. And yet—

—Ash hears someone calling for him. Crying for him. Out there. Inch by inch he makes his way toward the source, knowing, feeling, that here is something familiar. And when his shattered mind can put together words at last, when he knows with every neuron who calls for him, who still lives, he casts his thoughts into the void with all the strength in his body.

_Find me in the drift._


End file.
